100 Lessons Learned from 10 Years of Blogging

December 17, 2014

I can’t believe that I’ve been blogging for over 10 years now. Boy, has it been a fun journey!

Overall, I love blogging because I enjoy helping others. In addition to that, it’s helped generate a lot of traffic and revenue for my companies. It’s actually our main marketing channel for each of my software companies.

But if I had to start my blogging journey all over again, I would have done things differently. Why? Because I’ve learned a lot over the years.

Sadly, I don’t have a time machine, so I can’t go back in time and avoid the major mistakes I’ve made… but I can share my lessons with you so you can learn from them. Here are 100 lessons learned from blogging for 10 years…

Headlines

Here are some lessons learned from creating over 1,000 headlines:

Headlines with facts and data tend to get shared well within the B2B community.

Keep them short and sweet, or else your click-through rate will decrease.

The headline is the most important part of a blog post.

If your headlines are too long, they will get cut off within Google’s search results. Try to keep them to fewer than 65 characters.

Comments

Greetings from Niagara Falls! Ditto that comment! I love this list so much that I’m printing it out and going to tape it up next to my computer as a friendly reminder. I love this format……..so readable and user friendly =)

Congrats on 10 years Neil. I’ve been following your blog for roughly 5 or 6 and have recommended you and your companies to many I’ve crossed paths with. Keep up the great work and thanks for continuously providing great value to your audience.

I am so impressed by the quality of content you release so often. I digest everyone of your posts. They are always intriguing, relevant and filled with meat. I get so tired of the other internet marketing wannabees spewing out 250 of mindless blabber before getting to the point. Your posts are refreshing and satisfying. I am glad for your success. I hope it continues so you will stay inspired to helping your community as you do.

Neil, I’ve always enjoy reading your articles. They are not only useful and educational but also very interesting and speak from the heart. Thank you so much for your care. Keep up the great work… Just wish I could master few of the points you mentioned here 🙂 Will keep learning. You are awesome!

Congrats Neil! For me, consistency in doing the right thing stands out in my mind. Another thing; if you really want to grab folk’s attention, write a 6,000 or 7,000 word, eBook sized post, weekly. This way, all of your content will be evergreen, pillar, epic, and you’ll build your rep on the most powerful of foundations. I don’t write bad posts anymore, or poor posts, because I make each one count. This boosts my rep pronto online, because most bloggers publish, just to publish, and don’t put hour’s worth of time or effort into their blog posts.

I scrapped the idea of not publishing frequently enough a number of months back. The moment I did that I was instantly overcome by a sense of calm. No longer would I have to write frequently, to publish. I could actually write daily, working toward a one post a week goal, to creating something that my readers, my new readers, and search engines would love. So far, so good.

Of course, when you write 7,000 words or so, you’ll pay such strict attention to as many elements of your blog as possible. You’ll think through headlines and free offers and hot deals and discounts, and you’ll get your titles down, and linking in down, and linking out down, and also, you’ll post funny images on your blog and you’ll do all these things through a force of habit.

I am meticulous these days, and even though I do screw things up – as all of us do, because we’re human – I’m having so much more fun on this ride because I am taking my time, and making sure I’m doing a complete job, before I publish anything. I may not be perfect, or even close to it, but my posts on Blogging from Paradise are generating quite a buzz, because heck: if somebody gave me access to a free eBook each week, explaining how to become a pro blogger who lives in places like Fiji and Bali, for like 4 months, I gotta know more about this guy and I gotta read what he has to say.

Ryan, thanks for the kind words of support. I always enjoy reading your comments as they are informative and provide a lot of extra details I typically overlook. Looking forward to hearing much much more from you.

David, in a nutshell I have found that posting early in the morning or right before noon works best for you. With that being said what works for my audience may not work for yours. I’d test things out.

Congratulations on 10 years of blogging, that’s quite an achievement! There are so many great points in your post, and quite a few I need to take note of, thanks for sharing what you learned over the years, much appreciated.

Thank you for sharing article. I realized some situation where I did mistakes in blog postings. Special thanks for suggesting for social media sharing timings. Then start sharing on time on my social media accounts

Thank God, you found quick sprout before doing anything with blogging.

Now, my recommendation, Neil have an arsenal of guides that will guide you trough every step of the way, how tom get started with content, what to do with your first blogging platform, what strategy to take and more and more.

If I was you, I would start here,
1. The Advanced Guide To Content Marketing
2. The Advanced Guide to SEO
3. Advance Guide to Link Building
4. Growth Hacking

After that you can continue in any order you like, trust me, he got you covered all over the way.

It would be interesting to see a list of lessons learned on the topic of monetization. I know you use this blog for personal branding more so than monetization, but I bet you know a trick or two about making money with a blog or website.

Hi Neil,
I get regular updates by email of your interesting work you do over here. I do learn something new from your knowledgeable posts you share. Today is another day as i learn lots of things from the experience you shared with us. I would definitely use these important tips for my work. Thanks.

Hey!
First of all congratulations for completing a decade in the blogging world. Wish you a great journey ahead!
Thank you for such a valuable post. I am a newbie and need to learn a lot. This list is surely going to help me and make my path a bit easier.

Could you specify what you mean with “Using negative words within headlines is a great way to increase your click-through rates.”?

I’m not sure if you’re referring to negative meanings that evoke negative emotions, things like your “successful people are douc…” title or some specific technique.

And I know this isn’t an AMA but in case you can, I would love to have your answer on:
1. Have you noticed a difference in Email opens since by not starting with “Hey [name-of-subscriber],”?
2. Do you write in batches (e.g. all posts for next week on Monday morning)?

Wonderful, wonderful post. Thank you so much for putting all of this together. The bite-sized info makes it easier to remember and digest… and there’s lots to refer back to! Gonna put some of this into action next week!

Neil- Thanks so much for sharing all the information you provide. You give so much and I just want you yo know it’s always appreciated. Here’s to hoping next year is even better than the last.
Rock on sir and chers

Hi Neil, you have been an inspiration to me. I came to know your blog through the warrior forum. That was before you removed your forum. Few weeks ago, i decided to read your guide on content marketing, and it was awesome. It gave me a new perspective on how to write content for blogs. Thanks for the good job you are doing here.

Tremendously generous post. Ten years behind you, I appreciate how reader centric your approach and findings are. I want to blog with my own voice intuitively, but also focus on a real conversation. This will help and underscores that authenticity too.

@43 – “You can use tools like Qualaroo to generate ideas from your website visitors.”

As an alternative, you can use Insitez (https://www.insitez.com/) for this purpose. It allows you to run microsurveys on your website, soliciting for qualitative feedback. After a survey run of qualitative feedback, you can run a quantitative survey for getting statistical significance to ensure that the ideas stick with a larger audience.

great tips, I can definitely learn something from you
but the popular moments to post a blog post during the day or in the week doesn’t it depend on the subject or sector of your blog? Or doesn’t that really make any difference? I already noticed that a sunday is just plain stupid to post, but not sure about friday though… just asking,’cause my blog scheme is like: posting on monday, wednesday, friday and Saturday (sometimes) of course I want to reach as many people as possible 🙂 don’t know how I can change my scheme the best 🙂

1. Place the commenting option at the top of te reaction feed (I had to scroll all the way down 🙂 )
2. For e-mailmarketing: when using a email tools like sendgrid or mailchimp in clude your name in the ‘from’ field.

Wow, what a great compilation of blogging tips, Neil. Short & simple, yet so knowledgeable. I have learned a lot from this post than in the last 1.5 years of blogging career. Thanks a lot Neil for sharing these valuable tips.

I have to say a big thank you! You spending all this time over the past ten years educating people like me on all the ins and outs of blogging and everything inbetween. I am a small business owner trying to grow my business and everytime i read one of your articles i learn something incredible! Thank you again for taking the time to write.

Awesome article and thank you so much, Neil, for sharing this 100 lessons with us. Actually, this informative article is very helpful for newbies like me. In this single article, you have compiled such a great information which I have never get by reading a number of blogs.

I am a big fan of yours and read your blogs on the daily basis. The points are defined in a very clear way, and easy to understand. I have shared this blog with some of my friends and trying to implement on my websites’ blogs.

Only recently I had started to blog. Now I had learned a lot about what to do and what not to do when it comes to blogging. I will implement the right things from what I gained from this post… I will surely rectify few mistakes I make.

Blogging is not an easy task to make money from it, it requires hard work, luck and study to understand people’s mind. Once you know your power and people mind, all thing will go in your way…

It’s really wonderful to read this article, thanks for sharing the lessons you’ve learned. I have certainly learned a lot from this post. You are an inspiration! I hope I will be a better blogger just like you…

Only recently I had started to blog. Now I had learned a lot about what to do and what not to do when it comes to blogging. I will implement the right things from what I gained from this post… I will surely rectify few mistakes I make.

Blogging is not an easy task to make money from it, it requires hard work, luck and study to understand people’s mind. Once you know your power and people mind, all thing will go in your way…

It’s really wonderful to read this article, thanks for sharing the lessons you’ve learned. I have certainly learned a lot from this post. You are an inspiration! I hope I will be a better blogger just like you…